Princeton Students Behind Gaza Solidarity Encampment Head to Trial

Nearly one whole year after students at Princeton University held an encampment on their campus in solidarity with Gaza, 12 students and one postdoctoral fellow will head to trial. In a statement released by Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divest (PIAD) — the main organization behind Princeton’s Gaza solidarity encampment — organizers claim that the trial date “arose from a dangerous process of intimidation and coercion.”

The trial is scheduled for April 14-16 and the students face charges of “defiant trespass” for briefly holding a building occupation at Clio Hall, home of the Princeton Graduate School’s administrative offices. These activists, deemed the Clio 13, face up to 30 days in jail and a $500 fine. Their larger concern, however, is whether the Princeton administration succeeds at discouraging future activism against Israel’s oppression of Palestine.

Graduate student and PIAD member Aditi Rao explained how Palestine activism has called into question the culture of Princeton University.

“[The administration] prides itself on neutrality and ambivalence, and so it did not want there to be this narrative of so many students collecting themselves together for the cause of liberation, for the cause of a radical divestiture movement,” Rao told Mondoweiss.

In the recent statement about the upcoming Clio 13 trial, PIAD claims that the university has singled out Rao as a “ringleader” responsible for the building occupation and tried to pressure her into pleading guilty to “defiant trespass” in order for the other 12 students to have their charges dropped. Princeton University did not respond to a request for comment on these allegations.

Despite this, the group has held firm in their solidarity with one another and refused to have Rao plead guilty in order for the other activists to have their charges dismissed.

University spokesperson Jennifer Morrill defended the university’s handling of the protests.

“The purpose of regulation and discipline at Princeton is to protect the well-being of the community and to advance its educational mission. Princeton’s rules include an expansive and unwavering commitment to free speech – which includes peaceful dissent, protest, and demonstration. We held fast to that commitment last year and continue to do so,“ Morrill told Mondoweiss.

She did not respond to specific questions regarding allegations that Rao was singled out as a ringleader, that activists were surveilled by the university, or that the administration may have influence with the judge who is overseeing the trial of the Clio 13.

The Princeton Encampment

Like Princeton, universities across the country are ramping up repression of the movement for Palestine. Universities have tried to repress Palestine activism for years before the issue garnered national attention, but these attacks on student activism have gotten more intense after a wave of Gaza solidarity encampments rapidly spread to 174 universities around the world in a matter of weeks last spring.

PIAD launched its encampment early in the morning on April 25, 2024. The encampment highlighted five demands of the university, including financial divestment from “companies that profit from or engage in Israel’s ongoing military campaign, occupation, and apartheid policies,” and military divestment from “research on weapons of war funded by the Department of Defense.”

The night before, PIAD’s plans had been leaked and the university had already mobilized police to shut down the encampment. Almost immediately, the police arrested two graduate students for erecting tents on the grass in McCosh courtyard. The two students, Achinthya Sivalingam and Hassan Sayed, were charged with disorderly conduct, despite the fact that dozens of other students had also been setting up tents.

Despite the arrests, the encampment continued. Sivalingam said that initially it was difficult to garner support for the encampment because Princeton students are typically “so averse to student activism.” Rao, however, said that an important sector of undergraduate students participated in the encampment and challenged the conception of Princeton University as an apolitical place.

“Much to our surprise, the undergraduate students really, really, really turned out,” Rao said. “Because of the narrative of Princeton’s conservatism, efforts aren’t made to enliven the progressive spirit of this university… The encampment in many ways was this kind of marvelous opportunity for so many different kinds of progressive spirits on Princeton’s campus to collect themselves.”

After several days, the activists claim, the university was still refusing to meet with the encampment’s bargaining team. This led the 13 students to occupy Clio Hall on April 29. During the occupation, the 13 activists insisted in their communications with the university that they were willing to leave the building the minute that the administration agreed to meet with the bargaining team which had made itself available directly outside of the building. Instead, the university made arrests.

Along with the trespassing charges that the students are still fighting, the university subjected the Clio 13, as well as the two graduate students arrested at the start of the encampment, to a process of academic probation. This prohibited the students from setting foot on campus and limited their ability to fully participate in academic life. Both Rao and Sivalingam claim that they have been subjected to intimidation and surveillance. The university did not respond to a request for comment.

“They were tracking a few of us very specifically on different nights to see what we were up to and to like basically just monitor us. I think for the past year they have had either an administrator or a public safety officer tail Aditi throughout the university. And as I was graduating my family was really freaked out because there was a police officer that followed my family from event to event,” Sivalingam told Mondoweiss.

Looking Ahead at the Trial

After a protracted legal process Sivalingam and Sayed took plea deals in order to have their cases dismissed. The Clio 13 have decided to go to trial in part so Rao does not have to take sole responsibility for the protest. Additionally, the group does not believe they are guilty of trespassing given that they are tuition-paying members of the Princeton community and were willing to leave Clio Hall if the university negotiated with activists.

While the case is officially under the jurisdiction of the Princeton Municipal Court, Sivalingam and Rao believe that it is fully in the power of Princeton University to have the charges dropped.

“The judge that’s prosecuting [this] case goes to the same country club as most of the high level administrators do at the university. He’s a two-time graduate of Princeton, and you know is deeply connected,” Sivalingam said.

The university did not respond to a request for comment on allegations that Princeton may have collaborated with law enforcement on the case.

“It feels like the state is essentially double-punishing us on request of the university,” Rao said. “It is my full belief that if Princeton [University] wanted this to go away they could make it go away. If we’re pretending that a university that has a $36 billion[sic] endowment, and is essentially the only industry in the town it occupies, is not able to get a court to drop these petty charges then we’re really selling ourselves short.”

On January 17, PIAD announced on X that more than 1,000 people had signed a petition demanding that the university and municipal court drop the charges. The group encouraged people to keep “signing, sharing, and demanding Princeton do right by its students.”